The Challenges and Opportunities of Gender Equality in Development
Reprinted from World Politics ReviewBy Marcia Greenberg, F91
June 23, 2009
As we approach the 15th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, better known as the 1995 Beijing Conference, gender-equality advocates around the world are taking stock to assess what should come next. An honest reckoning that recognizes accomplishments, challenges and opportunities suggests that while progress has been made at policy levels, difficulties persist in translating policy into practice. Nevertheless, resources at the implementation level, if recognized, offer opportunities for gender equality to contribute not only to the well-being of women and girls, but also to more effective social and economic development.
A Pervasive & Persistent Challenge: Defining Gender Equality in Development
A first step in discussing "gender equality in development" is to define it. For the purposes of this article, it will be understood as "gender mainstreaming," a concept that itself generates confusion. Some of the strongest advocates and nay-sayers alike mistakenly regard "gender" as another word for "women." By focusing on women's activities, empowerment and rights, they perpetuate a fundamentally "women-in-development" approach.
While a primary objective of gender equality, given the sources of inequality, is to ensure women's dignity and enjoyment of basic human rights, gender mainstreaming ought to entail attention to men as well as women, employing gender analysis to understand the respective roles and responsibilities of men as well as women. (Hence the focus on "gender," meaning socially and culturally assigned roles, as compared with "sex," referring to biological differences.) Some even argue that gender mainstreaming should include paying attention to the particular needs of men, such as the rise in male alcoholism in the 1990s among men in Russia. Others suggest that since "mainstream" programs do plenty for men already, the objective ought to be to eliminate inequality and inequities.
For clarification, the reference point should be the internationally agreed-upon definition from the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Agreed Conclusions 1997/2, which defines gender mainstreaming as:
"...the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality." (Emphasis added.)
While diplomatically negotiated language tends to sidestep conflicts and introduce convenient ambiguity, the text is clear on three levels: 1) calling for attention to "implications" for both women and men; 2) ensuring that women's concerns are integral within all stages of policies and programs; and 3) establishing a goal of "gender equality," including the stipulation that men and women benefit equally and that inequality is not perpetuated.
Differences of perspective exist among advocates for gender equality, and two in particular warrant attention. The first of these are generational differences. Those who have been working for decades to meet women's basic needs and rights within a women-in-development framework often speak in terms of "gender mainstreaming," but continue to use a women-focused approach. By contrast, the younger generation has matured in a different political context. The international development approaches they have learned include recognizing that effective social and economic change is not possible without acknowledging and working with existing gender-based differences. For the younger cohort, the issues involved are now practical rather than political: not whether to pay attention to women and gender analyses, but how to do so.
The second difference of perspective relates to objectives -- specifically, whether the goal is solely to improve the circumstances of women and girls, or whether there is a parallel objective of improving the situation of families, communities and nations more broadly, with the understanding that gender equality contributes to sustainable development. By this reasoning, for example, girls' education may ensure girls' right to education, but it also enables them to contribute more effectively to the health and economic well-being of their families and communities.
Similarly, women's access to land and to micro-finance are both matters of women's rights, and represent significant measures for reducing women's poverty. But beyond the focus on women lies a gender-equality expectation that accompanies balancing gendered relations between women and men: that improving communications and equality of power between men and women will, for example, help to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS; or that enhancing respect and collaboration between fathers and mothers may strengthen the food security of poor families.
The Good News: Accomplishments
It is often difficult to notice change when it is gradual, and when one is situated in the midst of it. As a result, some who have been working to target resources for women's needs, to incorporate gender analysis into mainstream programming and to promote gender equality, may register day-to-day frustrations while missing some of the overall improvements that have been made.
Taking a moment to look back, at the outset of development assistance in the 1960s and 70s, women and girls were often invisible. If they were seen, they were regarded as victims rather than assets, and often targeted more in order to reach children than in their own right. When they benefited from some resources, it was usually through small activities, rather than enjoying their fair share within large programs.
Today, by contrast, although many programs require technical assistance to recognize how established approaches may inadvertently limit women's involvement, most begin with the intention to include women. Most donors -- whether multilaterals, governments, private foundations or NGOs -- have instituted gender policies. Women and girls benefit not only from a small group of donors focused on women, but from a wider community committed to gender integration or mainstreaming. The global mechanism of the Millennium Development Goals incorporates gender equality in MGD3: Promote gender equality and empower women.
And even though some communities or partners may push back on "women's rights," they are much more accepting of gender analysis. In fact, local partners often appreciate it as a way for outsiders to gain better understanding of local culture and society. Even the private sector is focused on women's contributions, as evidenced by the The Economist's articles on "Womenomics" (April 12, 2006 and April 19, 2007), Goldman Sach's 10,000 women program to provide business and management education to "underserved women," and the Gap's P.A.C.E. (Personal Advancement for Career Enhancement) aimed at empowering women workers. Research by Catalyst found that "companies with the highest representation of women on their top management teams experienced better financial performance," as evidenced by 35 percent higher Return on Equity and 34 percent higher Total Return to Shareholders. There is also increasing recognition that men and women bring different skills and approaches to problem solving, and that when they collaborate effectively, mixed teams tend to take more risks and be more innovative than all-men or all-women groups.
Finally, the Beijing Conference both evidenced and further catalyzed ever-expanding ownership by women and gender-equality advocates around the world. More and more women are involved in international development as both experts and partners. And increasingly, men are committed partners for combating gender-based violence and promoting gender equality -- as illustrated and articulated by the April 2009 Global Symposium in Rio de Janeiro on Engaging Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality.
Challenges in the Current Aid Environment
With the objectives of gender mainstreaming defined as improving the well-being and opportunities for poor women, engaging women and men more effectively together, and achieving gender equality in social, economic and political arenas, the current aid environment still poses challenges to achieving them. Some of these challenges are new and some are ongoing. Among them, two stand out: moving from policies to practice, and seeking more meaningful results than short-term indicators tend to favor. Three issues in particular help illustrate these challenges: emergency operations, "reconstruction" in post-conflict settings, and the limited capacities of government partners.
Achieving Gender Equality Objectives in the Midst of Emergencies
The pressures of humanitarian settings highlight the distance between policies and practice. Despite the best intentions, humanitarian workers often report that they simply lack the time, space or resources to ensure reaching women as effectively as possible -- to say nothing of promoting gender equality. Faced with the urgencies of logistics, security and overwhelming need, they cannot undertake gender analyses. The ability to work quickly to meet basic needs depends on standard operating procedures (SOPs). Delivering food, water, shelter and healthcare immediately precludes time to assess, analyze and innovate.
As necessary as SOPs are, however, they can be structured to take into account the admonition to "Do No Harm." Distributing food that requires fuel, for example, puts young women in danger as they leave a camp to seek firewood. Instead, SOPs can be devised to put food directly into women's hands, while at the same time considering the dangers of attack or theft, and ensuring transparency so that women and men know their entitlements, thereby reducing possibilities for sexual exploitation.
Three approaches are increasingly valued and implemented: 1) respecting the perspectives and knowledge of women; 2) listening to women as well as men in the event of problems or feedback; and 3) taking time before and after emergencies to redesign the SOPs. One effective way to understand the gender-based roles of women and men, and to communicate with women, is to ensure that women and men from the IDP or refugee community are among the aid workers.
Sustainability and Transformation in Post-Conflict Assistance
Another aid context that poses particular challenges for gender equality is post-conflict "reconstruction." Why re-construction? What is the rationale for reconstructing the very social, economic and political institutions that generated conflict? Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security underlines the importance of fully engaging women as decision-makers to define the terms of peace, and to lead a new and peaceful society. Yet politics continue to favor former male leaders, especially when ending the fighting requires offering the men who led it incentives and rewards. From leaders to combatants involved in Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs, urgency and resources focus primarily on men.
This clearly defies the ECOSOC expectations for "gender mainstreaming": women's concerns are not as integral as men's, women and men do not benefit equally, and inequalities are perpetuated. Consistent with the term "reconstruction," post-conflict aid tends not only to reconstruct physical infrastructure as it was before the war, but also the pre-existing social inequities along with them.
Moving from reconstruction to transformation
Beyond frustrating SCR 1325's intent and mandate, and beyond the inequities for women, such "reconstruction" can jeopardize sustainable peace by foregoing opportunities for transformation. Paying heed to women's needs in post-conflict environments, on the other hand, can offer insights into generalized approaches that can better benefit both women and men. Two useful examples are: 1) the imperative of recognizing and dealing with psychosocial trauma from violence, including sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV); and 2) acceptance of immediate "triage" solutions pending the establishment of normal systems.
Insofar as gender mainstreaming calls for assessing the particular needs of women and men, and SGBV is a major source of concern for women, it calls for sensitivity to how SGBV experiences may affect women's social and economic roles, such as in agriculture, parenting, and leadership. Yet a focus on gender, as opposed to a focus on women, invites consideration of comparable impacts on men -- namely, how men's wartime traumas may affect their ability to contribute socially and economically to families and communities. Recognizing how shows of strength by women determined to ensure their children's food security and education may mask their physical and emotional pain, sensitizes us to the need to account for all the traumas suffered by young women and men alike, all of whom lost the childhood experiences of family life, education, early physical health and nutrition -- as well as simple, normal "joy." These war-related experiences may fundamentally undermine men and women's ability to work together for their families and communities, making them a priority for post-conflict work.
Another way in which concerns for women within a gender mainstreaming approach may improve post-conflict analysis and programming is the need for "triage": taking steps to address immediate needs, even when not ideal. In post-conflict Liberia, maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world, and have even increased since the conflict's end. Yet a population of more than three million depends on fewer than 30 physicians, most clustered in or near Monrovia, with only several licensed OB/GYNs among them. One triage proposal is to train nurse midwives to do caesarean sections. While not an ideal solution, it addresses the immediate problem of women dying in childbirth, who cannot afford to wait for expanded health systems or trained physicians.
Similar issues arise in the justice system. New laws against rape and institutions to apply them cannot provide immediate protection and justice for women in rural areas. Absent courts, roads and transportation, literacy and information, and trust in a "modern" system, women need alternatives. Local dispute resolution, in particular local women who convene in "Peace Huts" to address violence and try to resolve it, in collaboration with their local chiefs, has been working for many who otherwise find themselves without recourse. Accepting the possibility of triage solutions for women's needs should open the door to triage solutions for other post-conflict challenges.
Gender-equality approaches in post-conflict work can help shift mindsets from "reconstruction" to transformation. Reconstruction tends to engage "off the shelf," development-oriented approaches, moving quickly to repair what was destroyed. Yet the physical, social and cultural destruction of war could present opportunities to start with a clean slate, and to build something genuinely new. One way to do so is to engage women who were typically excluded by the former society. Another is to promote mutual respect and teamwork among men and women -- in households, community projects, government offices and businesses. The objective is then to lay the foundations for peace and equitable prosperity, by purposefully ensuring full and broad-based participation, and establishing norms of equality, equity and respect.
Extending Gender Mainstreaming Capacities to Government Partners
Since the 2002 Monterrey Consensus adopted at the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development, and the 2003 Rome Declaration on Harmonization, the donor community has emphasized country ownership and government leadership. The current environment calls for even more partnership with governments, with broad-based support for ensuring that host countries and beneficiaries play greater roles in defining what is needed and in managing it. Yet from a gender perspective, the approach depends on two predicates: 1) governments that are genuinely representative, and 2) officials with gender-mainstreaming capabilities.
The commitment to work with government actors presupposes that they represent the needs and priorities of the recipient population. Typically, however, there are many more men than women in government (the worldwide average of women within legislative bodies of government is 18.4 percent), as well as more rich and well-educated urban elites than representatives of poor populations. In debates about allocating resources, fewer women -- often not yet able to collaborate successfully with male allies -- means a limited voice and power, which makes it harder to overcome gender-based roles and relations.
Meanwhile, to the extent that "harmonization" gives government the mandate to identify priorities and manage resources, government decisions will reflect where power is concentrated within the government. Rarely do Ministries of Gender and Development (or of Women and Children) have sufficient political clout to influence the broader governmental agenda. Gender-mainstreaming objectives and resources are likely to fall low on a government's list of priorities, and allied "soft ministries" -- such as health and education -- whose resources are so important for poor women are also likely to receive fewer resources. This often hampers the legitimacy and capacity of government to seek and use resources for women's needs and gender equality. One interesting approach, however, has been "gender budgeting" by watchdog organizations in civil society, who track resource allocations and analyze who benefits from them.
But even when governments are committed to addressing the needs of poor women and to removing barriers to gender equality, lack of capacity expands the gap between policy and practice. Funds allocated for reproductive health services require expert utilization. Regional or local representatives of Ministries of Gender or Women typically lack expertise and authority.
The key obstacle for the next generation of improvements is government agencies' lack of gender-mainstreaming capabilities. If a donor has purposefully targeted women, accounted for gender-based roles of women and men, and promoted gender equality in its funding program, those efforts may amount to nothing if the donor hands the program over to agencies who do not understand the value of the gender dimensions. Similarly, government capacities to formulate policies, design programs, train staff, and monitor implementation depend on understanding gender analysis. Although many developing nations have assigned "gender focal points" in government offices, those individuals typically lack the expertise and power to have a meaningful impact. In the spirit of "mainstreaming," all government employees should learn, and all training programs should incorporate, gender analysis skills.
Opportunities Going Forward
Currently, the core gender-equality challenges relate to translating policies into practice. This requires mutually reinforcing factors: clear communication of what the policies are and mean, along with supporting capabilities and champions among implementers.
Effective communication of gender policies depends on implementers and beneficiaries who value and call for gender equality. Two resources offer great promise: new allies and expertise. As was previously noted, today's allies include a younger generation of professionals and leaders with new thinking and expectations, among them men who recognize the importance of gender equality for all. The "Men Engage" declaration states: "By working in close synergy with women's rights organizations, we aim to change individual men's attitudes and practices, and transform the imbalance of power between men and women in relationships, families, communities, institutions and nations."
Greater expertise is needed and must reach "rank and file" implementers. Yet a growing cadre of local experts around the world -- from Kosovo to Mali to Palestine -- offer invaluable opportunities. Local experts are critical because they have first-hand knowledge of gender roles and trends within their cultures and locales. If donor organizations and international NGOs promote work environments where local men and women feel encouraged to participate fully (which is often not the case), they can contribute key perspectives -- even in the midst of emergencies. In addition, local expertise helps diminish suspicions that equate global commitments to "gender equality" with a Western agenda, by associating changes in gender roles with normal societal change, rather than with foreign meddling.
Finally, local gender specialists contribute to the shift from focusing on women alone to recognizing all of the "Rs": not just roles and responsibilities, but also how women and men relate to one another within the social and economic units of families, communities and businesses. Paying greater attention to women with men rather than women and men, offers the potential for gender equality to strengthen development results beyond equity.
The Fundamental Challenge: From Adding Women and Gender Analysis to the Mainstream, to Changing the Mainstream's Course
The rationale and approach for addressing women's needs and rights have undergone two shifts. In the first instance, the rationale remained constant, because women's distinct and urgent needs still required attention, and because women still suffered from violations of their basic rights. Thus with a constant objective, the approach changed. Gender mainstreaming introduced gender analysis and purposeful attention to the roles and support of men while still seeking to achieve better results for women.
Yet in the process, the change has extended from the approach to affect the objectives, because those who have adopted a gender mainstreaming approach have also learned from it. Upon paying attention to the respective roles of men and women as well as to gendered relations, and upon shifting from unilateral empowering of women to bilateral engagement of women and men for mutual respect and collaboration, more policymakers and program implementers have come to appreciate that gender equality does not benefit only women.
Gradually the objectives have expanded beyond ongoing concerns about equity for women, to include achieving gender equality in efforts to improve the social and economic well-being of all. Just as reconstructing societies that generate conflict is a missed opportunity to transform, simply adding women to mainstream programs forgoes more fundamental chances to reassess priorities and redesign approaches. The primary gender-equality challenge in the current aid environment is to modify programmatic approaches to change the very objectives, not just of gender mainstreaming, but of the mainstream itself.
• Marcia Greenberg has worked in international development for more than 15 years, with experience in employment issues, democracy-building, youth development and gender mainstreaming, primarily in Eastern Europe and Africa. Her clients have included the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations Development Program, and the World Food Programme. She is the co-author of "The Gender Dimensions of Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Challenges of Development Aid" in "Making Peace Work: The Challenges of Social and Economic Reconstruction" (2008), and the author of "Women's Rights Advocacy versus Gender Mainstreaming: Complementary or Alternative Strategies" in "Power, Gender and Social Change in Africa" (2009). She graduated from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and is an adjunct professor of Law at Cornell University.